And this backdrop may hold the key to what befell the sloths. Digging deeper, Lindsey and coauthors write, Tanque Loma was “a low-energy, anoxic, marshy aquatic environment” that sometimes went dry for long enough to let terrestrial plants to grow there. Instead, the bonebed was created in a watery environment that was later infiltrated by asphalt.
This place wasn’t a sticky trap like the famous La Brea asphalt seeps in Los Angeles. So how did so many sloths wind up buried in the same spot?įirst, the asphalt is something of a red herring. What’s more, the bones are entombed in sediment rich in asphalt and the mashed-up plant material found at the site are the sloth’s feces, gut contents, or both. It’s a fantastically-rich Ice Age bonebed, containing the remains of at least 22 individual Eremotherium laurillardi – one of the largest of the giant ground sloths. The site, called Tanque Loma, has just gotten a detailed description from paleontologist Emily Lindsey and colleagues. So it is with a massive accumulation of sloths found in Santa Elena, Ecuador. So when paleontologists come across dense pockets of bone, representing not just one animal but many, how such an ancient treasure trove was assembled is one of the core threads that we can pull on to unravel the mystery of a time long gone. Most lives that ever have been lived left no record of their existence or passing.
Why?įossilization is a fairly rare occurrence to start with. Prehistoric boneyards always raise the same question.
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